Stereo vision: Mantises see 3-D differently, study says

Praying mantises sporting tiny 3-D glasses that were held in place with beeswax have revealed a new kind of “stereo” vision that may help improve robot sight, researchers said Thursday.

With two teardrop-shaped, light-filtering lenses perched on their heads, the insects lashed out in lab experiments at images of tempting prey in a special 3-D film, a team of scientists said.

With two light-filtering lenses perched on their heads, the insects lashed out in lab experiments at images of tempting prey in a special 3-D film. (NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY UK/AFP / MIKE URWIN / MANILA BULLETIN)

Scientists then observed the insects’ reaction to more complex images, and learnt that mantis vision works very differently to ours.

“Mantises only attack moving prey, so their 3-D doesn’t need to work in still images,” said Vivek Nityananda of Newcastle University, one of the authors of a study published in the journal Current Biology.

“We found mantises don’t bother about the details of the picture, but just look for places where the picture is changing,” he said in a video explaining the experiment.

This was the case even when each eye looked at two completely different images — an ability humans don’t share.

According to fellow researcher Jenny Read, this was a simpler method of 3-D vision, and could have implications for building lighter machines, such as drones.